Nevertheless, it seems to be far from improbable that the system of
industrial, capitalistic civilization, which came in, in substance, with
the "free thought" of the Reformation, is nearing an end. Very probably it
may have attained to its ultimate stages and may dissolve presently in the
chaos which, since the Reformation, has been visibly impending. Democracy
in America has conspicuously and decisively failed, in the collective
administration of the common public property. Granting thus much, it
becomes simply a question of relative inefficiency, or degradation of
type, culminating in the exhaustion of resources by waste; unless the
democratic man can supernaturally raise himself to some level more nearly
approaching perfection than that on which he stands. For it has become
self-evident that the democrat cannot change himself from a competitive to
a non-competitive animal by talking about it, or by pretending to be
already or to be about to become other than he is,--the victim of infinite
conflicting forces.
BROOKS ADAMS,
QUINCY, _July_ 20, 1919.
THE EMANCIPATION OF MASSACHUSETTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE COMMONWEALTH.
The mysteries of the Holy Catholic Church had been venerated for ages when
Europe burst from her mediaeval torpor into the splendor of the
Renaissance. Political schemes and papal abuses may have precipitated the
inevitable outbreak, but in the dawn of modern thought the darkness faded
amidst which mankind had so long cowered in the abject terrors of
superstition.
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